Top end of town turns out for the Turnbulls

IT was an AAA-list fundraiser for the Sydney Cancer Foundation at one of Sydney's best harbour addresses.

But when power couple Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull threw open the doors of their Point Piper mansion on Friday night to the eastern suburbs glitterati, the talk was all politics.

In between bites of Asian finger food and sips of Yellowglen bubbly, the serious heavyweights of Sydney society whispered and gossiped about Mr Turnbull's spectacular tilt at Federal Parliament.

It was the same at the Liberal State Council meeting at Homebush yesterday. An urgent motion from the Vaucluse branch called for a review of preselection procedures, and Mr Turnbull and incumbent Peter King turned up to press the flesh.

By 5 pm today, Mr Turnbull will know if he has a federal political career ahead of him in the prestige eastern suburbs seat of Wentworth following one of the most spectacular recruiting exercises ever undertaken in national Liberal Party branches.

When counting stops and new members are accepted late this afternoon, eastern suburbs electorate branches will be the richer by nearly 3500 new members. Most of those will be loyal foot soldiers signed up in the last month by Mr Turnbull and the man he is trying to unseat, Mr King. Every supporter is vital in a titanic struggle to win preselection.

On Friday night, business leaders and celebrities who usually associate number-crunching with balance sheets and fundraisers, were assessing Mr Turnbull's chances. They turned up with great enthusiasm to the intriguing double-entendre function, most tripping splendidly across the harbour in water taxis.

Guests had been advised to do so by their hosts who, if Mr Turnbull wins, will lay claim to the title of king and queen of Australian politics. Lucy Turnbull is Sydney Lord Mayor, and - in another layer of intrigue - also needing a boost to retain the post.

Channel Seven supremo David Leckie was on hand to absorb some intelligence. So too were Kerryn Phelps and Jackie Stricker, who are also contemplating a move by Phelps into the political arena.

Katherine Keating put aside family political allegiances to attend; cosmetics king Jean-Marc Carriol was there, as was National Rugby League boss David Gallop.

Former Liberal MP and Macquarie Bank executive Warwick Smith was seen in many earnest conversations; and Hermes Paris Australia managing director Karin Upton-Baker and the essential A-list attendee, Deborah Hutton, absorbed the dramas.

Against the backdrop of two huge marquees decorated with striking Asian lanterns, acting state Health Minister Frank Sartor introduced Mrs Turnbull, joking that it wasn't often he and his former mayoral deputy "worked as a double act".

At $150 a ticket and more than 200 attendees, the night looked like kicking more than $30,000 into the Raise The Roof fundraiser for the Sydney Cancer Foundation.

But according to one social observer, kicking in to Malcolm Turnbull's political fighting fund was also part of the night, even if nobody was so blunt as to spell it out.

"Nobody here ever opens their own home for these functions other than for their own self-interest, no matter how altruistic they might appear to be," the observer said. "There was certainly the expectation there, that they could be called up to support Malcolm in some way or another."

The sensitivity about the high-flying merchant banker and republican's political ambitions was reflected in the response to a straw poll The Sun-Herald attempted to conduct among federal Liberals last week.

There was none.

Out of nearly a dozen strategic offices contacted, no MP was prepared to make a comment about his push to replace the low-key Mr King.